Rationale:
The overall goal of this lesson is for students to learn new information from
what they are reading. In order for this to happen, students must
interpret text through a series of processes. In this lesson, the students
will focus on learning how to summarize a piece of text. Students will
accomplish this goal through breaking down summarization into simple steps. The
students will also experience learning through practice and teacher modeling.
Also, the students will participate in a vocabulary review that will help them
to learn how to identify difficult words and be prepared for the reading.
Lastly, they will answer good questions about the text that will help them in
their overall goal of learning from reading. Their understanding of the lesson
will be assessed through an activity to be completed individually. The
activity will allow the teacher to assess the students level of understanding to
complete each of the summarization rules for a piece of text and answer
comprehension questions corresponding with the text.

Materials:
Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business (enough copies for the entire
class), paper and pencils (for every student in the class), whiteboard, dry
erase marker, eraser, a typed up copy of the assessment assignment and questions
(enough for every student in the class), and a copy of Making Sight Words as a
reference for the teacher (optional).

Procedure:

1.Say: The
goal of reading is to get the messages encoded in texts, learn from them, assess
their importance, and enjoy them. In order to learn from what you read, you
need to know how to complete several processes. Today, we are going to learn how
to successfully summarize a piece of text. In order to do this, there are
several rules we must follow.

2.Say: In
order to summarize a piece of text, first we must have a text to summarize.
Today, we will be working together to summarize chapter 1 out of the book,
Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey
Business, by Barbara Park.

3.Say: Before
we begin the reading we will have a vocabulary review. This review will
better prepare you to understand the reading and make your ability to summarize
stronger. Also, this vocabulary review will help you learn how to better
identify, use, and commit to memory challenging words.

4.Next, write
the vocabulary words on the board in a horizontal line. Say: The vocabulary
words for this lesson are apology, freshener, present and surprise. Make
sure there are spaces between each word and room to write under each word. (It
may be easiest to create a box to avoid confusion for the students.)

Apology

Freshener

Present

Surprise

Locate

Locate

Locate

Locate

Relate

Relate

Relate

Relate

Extricate

Extricate

Extricate

Extricate

Generate

Generate

Generate

Generate

Also, under
each word write locate, relate, extricate, and generate. You will also
want to leave room between these words so that you can write by each step.
Number the steps in order from 1-4. **Now begin the vocabulary review by
modeling all of the steps for the word apology. As each step is explained
write out what you come up with for each one with the corresponding term.

5.Say: When
you want to learn more information about a challenging word there are four steps
you can follow that will help you better understand the word and commit it to
your long term memory. This review can take place before or after a reading.
Today, it is going to take place before so that our understanding of the reading
can be as successful as possible. However, when doing a review on your own
it will most likely be more beneficial after the reading. Our first
word is apology. First, I am going to locate the word. This means I am
going to find an example of the word that means the same thing; "My friend said
she was sorry for stepping on my foot." In this sentence I used the word
sorry as an example for apology. Next, I am going to relate the word to other
words that are similar in meaning, which for this term I can relate it to the
words excuse, justify, and sorry. Now, that I know apology can be used as
saying sorry to someone for what you did and I am going to use it in another
context to know that I have a good understanding of the word. In his speech he
used an apology to defend his story. Finally, I am going to test myself on
my understanding of the word by using it in a new sentence. I gave an
apology to my friends for being late to dinner because they had to wait on me.

6.
Say: Now that you have an understanding of how to learn vocabulary words we are
going to do the next two words together. During this portion of the lesson
ask the students for answers for each step of the process. If they are not
able to give you accurate answers then make sure to model how to find them.
After working together for the words freshener and present tell the students
that they are to complete the same process on their own for the word surprise.
While the students are working walk around the room to see how they are doing
and answer any questions they may have. When they are finished review each
step for the word surprise as a whole group.

7.
Say: For the next part of the lesson we are going to read chapter one of Junie
B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business. (Before beginning to read the story give
the students a brief overview of what the story is about. This is similar to a
book talk but on a more board scale.) We will be reading about a Junie B. Jones
adventure. In this story, Junie B. learns that she will be having a new
sibling. Throughout the story, you will see what Junie B. endures as she waits
for the arrival of her new sibling. (The teacher will read the story aloud to
the students. As the story is being read the teacher will ask students questions
that will activate background knowledge, integrate different ideas, and capture
large blocks of information. It is important to read the passage prior to the
lesson so you can prepare the questions you want to ask your students. She
will model reading fluently and with expression.) During the reading you need to
be focusing on the content of the story because it will help you in completing
the steps of summarization. Listening to the content will help you to understand
the text. Pay close attention to the content, and that will allow for successful
reading comprehension, which will allow the you to understand what is happening
in the text so that you can complete the steps of summarization. These steps
include deleting unimportant information, generalizing terms, and creating a
sentence that sums up the main idea.

8.
Say: Now that we have a piece of text to summarize we are going to learn about
the steps we have to follow. Summarization can be broken down into three
smaller steps. Once all the steps have been completed we will have a
clear understanding of what happened in the chapter and a topic sentence that
captures all the main ideas of the selected text.

9.
Say: The first step in summarization is clearing away the trivial and redundant
information that is not worth remembering. Looking back in the text and noting
important information and ideas from each page can complete this step.
Lets look at chapter one from your copy of the book. Raise your hand to
share any ideas and important information from the story. Once the students have
volunteered answers go through each one. Before moving on to the next step
make sure the following ideas are present: Junie B.'s parents have a surprise
for her, she thinks the surprise is a present, she learns that the surprise is
that she is going to have a sibling, she is upset by the news, and she makes a
compromise over air freshener. If there is extra information given by the
students you can scaffold the students by asking them questions about whether
this information is actually valuable to the summary. If they say yes, ask
them to tell you how. Also, if the students are not providing good
important information you can scaffold their thinking with good questions.
You may ask: What was Junie B's surprise? How did Junie B. react to her
surprise? How do you think Junie B. was feeling about the surprise by the end of
the chapter? Once the students have established the important ideas and
removed trivial information move on to the next step.

10.
Say: The second step in summarization is finding umbrella terms that cover
multiple items or events. For example animals would be an umbrella term for dog,
cat, and horse. Now lets look back at the main ideas you have established and
see if you can come up with any umbrella terms to make the main ideas more
compact. (Write down all of the examples that the students give.) Once all
student answers have been volunteered review each one with the class to see if
it fits or not. Before moving onto the next step make sure the following terms
are covered: siblings for brother and sister, surprise for present and baby on
the way. With this particular text this step may not have a lot of umbrella
terms. This is okay because the students will still be able to make a successful
summary of the text. If the students have a hard time coming up with
umbrella terms you may scaffold their thinking by asking them questions similar
to the following: Is there a way to break down brother and sister so that it is
only one word? What do you think about the word surprise? Could that be an
umbrella word in itself? If yes, how?

11.
Say: The final step in summarizing a piece of information is creating a topic
sentence that covers all the main ideas of the text in a few words. In
order to do this we can use the main ideas and umbrella terms that we have
identified to complete this step. Before creating the sentence explain a
good strategy for creating topic sentences. Tell them that the best way to
make a sentence is to first write down the topic to be used as the subject.
Then create a predicate that captures all of the main ideas we have established.
Now give them an example that they will be able to understand. For example if we
read a text about all the different animals and what noises they make I could
create the following topic sentence: All animals make noises that are unique to
their individual animal type. At this point, you can break the class into
groups. If they are in tables working with their table will be the easiest.
Have each group come up with their own topic sentence about the chapter.
Have all groups share their sentence with the class. After analyzing each
group work as a class to use parts of each sentence to make up the ultimate
topic sentence. The final product of this step will allow understanding of
the overall gist of this piece of text. Also, if this is done with each
chapter you it will give you an understandable complete summary of the entire
text, which is helpful in learning from reading.

12.
The last part of this lesson will assess their understanding of the content and
their ability to apply all the steps discussed to learn from what they read.
Since the lesson is a bit long if there is not enough time to complete the
activity in class the students may complete it at another part of the day or
that night for homework and then turn it in the next day. The students will read
chapter two in their copy of the book. Then, we will be asked to follow
each summarization step so that they are able to create a concrete topic
sentence for chapter two of the text. For the activity, each step in the
summarization process must be documented. Also, the students must answer the
following questions: What was Junie B.'s surprise? At first, how does Junie B.
feel about her surprise? After chapter two how does Junie B. feel about her
surprise? Can you relate what Junie B. is going through to something in
your life? How? The teacher will collect the activity from each student
to assess their understanding of summarization, story comprehension and to see
if they were able to accomplish the overall goal of learning from their
reading.

The below
table can be used to assess the students assessment activity.

Rubric
Checklist:

Summarization Rules:

There is no attempt made at completing the step

The student attempted to follow the step but the
information is incorrect

The student understands the rule and the text
but the answer is not concrete

The student successfully completed the rule and
it is evident they have a concrete understanding
applying the text to the rule

Deleting Trivial Text:

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

Categorizing related words into umbrella terms

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

Main idea sentence

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

Comprehension Questions:

There is no attempt made at answering the
question

The student answers the questions but it is
incorrect; it is clear the student did not
comprehend the text

The student correctly answered the question but
there could be more depth to the answer

The student correctly and thoroughly answered
all parts of the question

What was Junie B's surprise?

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

At first, how does Junie B feel about her
surprise?

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

After chapter 2, how does Junie B feel about her
surprise?

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

(fill in depending on student)

Can you relate what Junie B is going through to
an event in your life? How?